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February 8, 2010

SCID recommended for newborn screening in the US

The US Secretary’s Advisory Committee for Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children (ACHDNC) has recommended that an additional condition be added to the panel of conditions for which all newborns receive screening. (PHG Foundation)

Test-tube boys may inherit fertility problems

DOCTORS have uncovered the first evidence that fathers of test-tube babies may be passing on their infertility to their sons. A new study has found that boys conceived through IVF treatment involving a single sperm being directly injected into a female egg often inherit shorter fingers, a trait known to be associated with infertility. (Times Online)

February 7, 2010

Event: Webinar Event

2010 Webinar Event
for Fertility Clinics, Adoption Agencies and Attorneys

Following on the success of our 2009 webinars the Embryo Adoption Awareness Center brings you three professional perspectives of embryo donation and adoption.

Daniel L. Stewart, M.D., Reproductive Endocrinology

Shawnee Mission Medical Center Physician Group

Sanford Krigel, Attorney at Law

Krigel and Krigel, PC

Kris Probasco, LCSW, LSCSW

Adoption and Fertility Resources
  • Professional insights regarding the medical, legal and social aspects of embryo donation and adoption.
  • Why do some clinics support embryo donation and adoption?
  • Is counseling an important component of the embryo donation and adoption process?
  • What are the rewards/risks for a clinic to partner with an adoption agency?
  • Why should donors/adopters seek legal counsel?
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
11:30 am EASTERN TIME
10:30 am CENTRAL TIME
9:30 am MOUNTAIN TIME
8:30 am PACIFIC TIME
$25.00 per person or $50 maximum per business.
Register here:

http://www.embryoadoption.org/seminars/

February 5, 2010

Bill would expand inheritance for in vitro babies

A legislative subcommittee approved a measure Thursday giving inheritance rights to Iowa children born up to two years after their father’s death. The measure would mean children conceived through in vitro fertilization would be entitled to benefits such as Social Security survivor payments even if they were gestated after a parent’s death. (Chicago Tribune)

January 26, 2010

Inaccurate media portrayal of PGD for ‘minor’ genetic disorders

UK media coverage of plans to expand the list of conditions for which pre-natal genetic diagnosis (PGD) is permissible in the UK implies that some of the disorders are not serious. (PHG Foundation)

January 25, 2010

Medical Kidnapping: Rogue Obstetricians vs. Pregnant Women

Often one reads about historical failures in medical ethics, such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study or the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck, and one reflects with relief that health care has progressed in our society to the point where such abuses are no longer possible. Then one stumbles upon an occasional systemic failure so grievous, such as the amputation of a patient’s wrong leg, that it nearly defies credibility, and reminds us that we are still vulnerable to medical exploitation and misconduct. If the facts as alleged in the media and court filings prove accurate, then the treatment of a pregnant Tallahassee mother, Samantha Burton, by her obstetrician, Jana Bures-Forsthoefel, may well rank among the most egregious abuses perpetrated against a patient by her caregiver since the triumph of the patients’ rights movement in the 1970s. (Huffington Post)

Clinics destroying embryos with minor genetic conditions

IVF clinics are destroying embryos with relatively minor genetic conditions such as thalassaemia, the blood disorder suffered by Pete Sampras. (Telegraph)

January 20, 2010

New Issue of Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy is Now Available

Medicine, Health Care, and Philosophy (Volume 13, Number 1, February 2010) is now available by subscription only.

Articles include:

  • “Molecular Medicine and Concepts of Disease: The Ethical Value of a Conceptual Analysis of Emerging Biomedical Technologies” by Marianne Boenink, 11-23.
  • “Rational Suicide: Philosophical Perspectives on Schizophrenia” by Jeanette Hewitt, 25-31.
  • “‘It’s Intense, You Know.’ Nurses’ Experience in Caring for Patients Requesting Euthanasia,” by Yvonne Denier, Bernadette Dierckx De Casterlé, Nele De Bal, and Chris Gastmans; 41-48.
  • “How to Reveal Disguised Paternalism” by Niels Lynoe, Niklas Juth, and Gert Helgesson; 59-65.
  • “Problems Faced with Legislating for IVF Technology in a Roman Catholic Century” by Pierre Mallia, 77-87.

January 19, 2010

A new test to reveal a baby’s gender revives an old ethical dilemma

For couples trying to have a baby, the No. 1 question that can be answered with a simple test is, Am I pregnant? No. 2 may soon be, Is it a boy or a girl? (Los Angeles Times)

January 18, 2010

Doctors reject calls to ban women over 50 from receiving IVF

Senior fertility doctors rejected calls for a ban on women over 50 receiving fertility treatment at British clinics after it emerged that a 59-year-old woman was in the process of trying to obtain IVF at the London Women’s Clinic in Harley Street. (Times Online)

January 15, 2010

22- to 24-week foetus in ‘grey zone’

When Amillia Taylor was born at Baptist Children’s Hospital in Miami on October 24, 2006, she made headlines across the world. She weighed just 280 grams and was 240 centimetres long. More importantly, she was born after just 21 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy—the youngest premature baby known to have ever made it. (The Times of India)

Surrogacy Battles Face Uneven Legal Landscape

Four years ago, Donald Robinson Hollingsworth and Sean Hollingsworth, a gay couple living in New Jersey, set in motion their plan to become first-time parents. They contracted with a woman to carry an embryo from donated eggs and sperm from Sean Hollingsworth. The surrogate mother, Donald Hollingsworth’s sister Angelia Robinson, gave birth to twins in 2006. A legal issue soon arose: Did Ms. Robinson have parental rights over the twins? (Wall Street Journal)

January 12, 2010

Disclosing the identity of sperm donors

Children conceived from donor sperm during the fertility-industry boom of the 1980s are now becoming adults, and many of them believe they have a basic right to know their genetic heritage. In Canada, as in many other countries, sperm donors are anonymous. But some countries have changed that policy. Debate remains, however, about which rights are more important: the donor’s right to privacy or the offspring’s right to full identity. (CMAJ)

New Issue of Journal of Medical Ethics is Now Available

Journal of Medical Ethics (Volume 36, Issue 01, January 2010) is now available by subscription only.

Articles include:

  • “Clinical Ethics: Ascribing Intentions in Clinical Decision-making” by L A Jansen and J S Fogel, 2-6.
  • “Clinical Ethics: ‘It’s Crucial They’re Treated as Patients’: Ethical Guidance and Empirical Evidence Regarding Treating Doctor-Patients” by F E fox, G J Taylor, M F Harris, K J Rodham, J Sutton, J Scott, and B Robinson; 7-11.
  • “Ethics: When Physicians Forego the Doctor-patient Relationship, Should They Elect to Self-Proscribe or Curbside? An Empirical and Ethical Analysis” by J K Walter, C W Lang, and L F Ross; 19-23.
  • “Law, Ethics and Medicine: The Right Not to Know and Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis for Huntington’s Disease” by E Asscher and B-J Koops, 30-33.
  • “Research Ethics: Payment for Participation in Research: A Pursuit for the Poor?” by M Stones and J McMillan, 34-36.
  • “Research Ethics: An Investigation of Patients’ Motivations for their Participation in Genetics-related Research” by N Hallowell, S Cooke, G Crawford, A Lucassen, M Parker, and C Snowdon; 37-45.
  • “Teaching and Learning Ethics: A Practical Approach to Teaching Medical Ethics” by S Mills and D C Bryden, 50-54.

January 11, 2010

New Issue of Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics is Now Available

Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (Volume 19, Issue 01, January 2010) is now available by subscription only.

Articles include:

  • “Not Dead Yet: Controlled Non-Heart-Beating Organ Donation, Consent, and the Dead Donor Rule” by Dale Gardiner and Robert Sparrow, 17-26.
  • “Just Caring: In Defense of Limited Age-Based Healthcare Rationing” by Leonard M. Fleck, 27-37.
  • “Actualizable Potential, Reproduction, and Embryo Research: Bringing Embryos into Existence for Different Purposes or Not at All” by Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu, 51-60.
  • “Consequentialism Without Consequences: Ethics and Embryo Research” by Sarah Chan and John Harris, 61-74.
  • “Choosing Deafness with Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis: An Ethical Way to Carry On a Cultural Bloodline?” by Silvia Camporesi, 86-96.
  • “When is My Genetic Information Your Business? Biological, Emotional, and Financial Claims to Knowledge” by Ruth Wilkinson, 110-117.
  • “Dignity: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Still Counting” by Doris Schroeder, 118-125.
  • “Human Rights and Genetic Technologies” by D. Micah Hester and Alissa Swota, 126-127.
  • “Human Rights and American Bioethics: Resistance is Futile” by George J. Annas, 133-141.

Embryo genetic screening controversial - and successful

A “slippery slope” to “a world of eugenics,” as bioethics authorities once worried, or a healthy life for a teenage girl? Once at the center of a science controversy, Molly Nash, 15, represents the human answer to the debate over a genetic screening technique, ” pre-implantation genetic diagnosis,” (PGD) that made headlines a decade ago. (USA TODAY)

January 7, 2010

Biologists develop efficient genetic modification of human embryonic stem cells

Biologists have developed an efficient way to genetically modify human embryonic stem cells. Their approach, which uses bacterial artificial chromosomes to swap in defective copies of genes, will make possible the rapid development of stem cell lines that can both serve as models for human genetic diseases and as testbeds on which to screen potential treatments, they say. (PhysOrg)

December 18, 2009

Genetic Lessons From a Prolific Sperm Donor

Maxey, 51, happens to be one of the most prolific sperm donors in the country. Between 1980 and 1994, he donated at a Michigan clinic twice a week. He’s looked at the records of his donations, multiplied by the number of individual vials each donation produced, and estimated the success of each vial resulting in a pregnancy. By his own calculations, he concluded that he is the biological father of nearly 400 children, spread across the state and possibly the country. (Newsweek)

December 17, 2009

Women without partners will soon be able to freeze ova

Women aged 30 to 40 who have no partner but want to conceive once they do, will be permitted, in up to half a year, to have ova removed and frozen until they are ready to become mothers. This major change in Health Ministry regulations will take place following new recommendations by the National Bioethics Council, presented this week to ministry director-general Dr. Eitan Ha’am. (Jerusalem Post)

December 16, 2009

Irish court rules against woman in frozen embryo appeal

An Irish woman has lost her legal battle to have three of her frozen embryos released to her. The Supreme Court in the Republic of Ireland dismissed the appeal which was taken by a 43-year-old mother. (BBC News)

December 14, 2009

Baby assembly consists of many moving parts

Unable to have a baby of her own, Amy Kehoe became her own general contractor to manufacture one. For Kehoe and her husband, Scott, the idea seemed like their best hope after years of infertility. (Herald Tribune)

 

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